M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110

[Johnny Marr]

On Sunday, February 22, 2015, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote
>
>
> *** Okay  - someone has to ask it - what’s with the little ditties strung
> throughout - and throughout all of PYnchon’s work - is this a nod to Joyce
> that really touched the spirit of Pynchon and he couldn’t resist?
> Parodies?  Parallax?
>
> Pynchon is a polphonic narrator. He loves writing in all its many guises,
including Tin Pan Alley or Gilbert and Sullivan songwriting.

The songs do appeal to his 'zany' sense of humour, although a more generous
commentator might suggest they showcase his musicality and his ease with
unusual rhymes.

It's been said that Shakespeare's short sentences and epigrams contain all
the essential action and themes of his plays - the longer passages provide
the theoretical digressions. Perhaps Pynchon's ditties provide an
opportunity to succinctly summarise the latest characters and plot
developments (although from memory a lot of the ditties do seem to arise
from tangential details) ...



> I can’t copy anything from this source:  “Music in Thomas Pynchon’s Mason
> & Dixon”  - it’s 36 pages long including Notes.  I didn’t have to register
> or anything like that - just asked for .pdf and scrolled down.
> https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/75/170
>
> ***********
> "While other writers, like James Joyce, have invoked parallax as a
> perspectival method in order to challenge univocal narrative form, Pynchon
> works the concept more radically into his fictional treatment of
> historiography.[4] "
>
> More at:  http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.903/14.1burns.html
>
> ****
> Page 110:
>
> **  Some omniscient narrator presents the backstory of Mason takes to
> attending public hangings following Rebekah’s death.
>
> "Wapping was also the site of 'Execution Dock', where pirates and other
> water-borne criminals faced execution by hanging from a gibbet constructed
> close to the low water mark. Their bodies would be left dangling until they
> had been submerged three times by the tide.[2]”
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping
>
> Lower-situated imitations of the "Hellfire Club”
> Hell-Fire Club -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Club  (of the
> times in England)
> also see:
>
> http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11:_105-115#Page_110
>
> Hangings on Tyburn - here we have the famous gallows - ended in 1783
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyburn#Tyburn_gallows
>
> And what a beautiful line:
>
> ** “To the Fabulators of  Grub Street, a licentious night-world of Rakes
> and Whores, surviving only in memories of pleasure, small darting winged
> beings, untrustworthy as remembrancers … “
>
> (a nod to the untrustworthiness of memory)
> Grub Street:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grub_Street
>
> continuing:   “… yet its infected, fragrant, soiled encounters ‘neath the
> Moon were as worthy as any, -  an evil-in-innocence…”
>
>
> (Even though untrustworthy,  memories are valuable in some way -
> “evil-in-innocence”  because memories are like wolves in sheep’s clothing? -
>
> ******
> And in a total discontinuance from the narrative although apparently in
> response to it:
> (“Uncle, Uncle!”… )  etc.
> This is Tenebræ and the Cherrycoke kids breaking in, isn’t it?  Probably
> because Cherrycoke is getting too close to subjects inappropriate for the
> ears of children?  -  “Rakes and Whores" and what not.
>
> *********
>
> Becky
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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